


Rescued

by orphan_account



Series: Lullabye [10]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Kidfic, M/M, Prompt Fic, Vandays, ageshifting, i fit three different prompts in one fic i'm evil, not ageplay, physical regression, suspended disbelief, they fit so well and i had to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 04:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't really clear who rescues who in the end, but a lot of rescuing is needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescued

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Peterick-Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Peterick-Anonymous).



> title from the jacks mannequin song, who i started listening to out of guilt after andrew mcMahon replied to me on twitter :D.
> 
> Prompt 1: nobody in the band can find little patrick anywhere but it turns out he had just gone outside for a second and gotten vv lost  
> prompt 2: pete gives patrick a lecture on stranger danger but ends up almost getting kidnapped  
> prompt 3: patrick gets mad and decides to run away, but after about an hour it starts to snow so he goes home, only to find that pete went out looking for him  
>   
> I hope these don't spoil it too much, i removed the endings so they don't :) PS: sorry to the people who prompted me earlier that i haven't written yet, i owed this to someone from about a week ago and it happened to fit really well with two more recent prompts, but if you're one of the people who've requested me recently, dw i AM doing it, i've already started on the first one :D Love everyone who supports this! prompt me/talk at saverockandsoulpvnk.tumblr.com if ya want ;)  
> double PS, messagemmann and sugar-we're-going-down-swinging, it's not showing up as for you guys but it totally is :) <3

 

Since playing Warped, Fall Out Boy's touring schedule had become more and more filled, taking them out further and further for longer and longer. It made scheduling dates tricky, because as more were added, one of them was bound to clash with Patrick's own schedule.

On more occasions than he was comfortable, Pete had thought Patrick was going to turn into a five year old right there on stage, unable to hold it any longer, and once they got backstage and Patrick disappeared somewhere and then returned, getting mistaken for a lost kid and almost getting kicked out of the venue multiple times, making Pete have to give awkward excuses as to why there was a kid with a band hardly old enough to contain its father - ("His," Pete had growled angrily, on the occasion a squirming Patrick, held off the floor by an alarmingly burly man, had been called an 'it'.)

But when there were no _scheduling clashes_ , Patrick quite enjoyed touring. He liked to sit on Pete's lap and point out of the window at things he thought were worthy of note - they usually weren't, in the general opinion, but Pete pretended to be amazed by the fifth 'very tall tree' of the hour, ruffling Patrick's head and wondering when he would get to sleep.

  
***

They pulled over at some gas station sometime in the murky afternoon. Pete went in to get food, Andy followed to pay for their gas and Joe was _supposed_ to be looking after Patrick.

"Dude, where's Patrick?"  
"What, no one fucking told me to watch him!"  
"Joe," Pete growled, "You should fucking _assume_ , I leave a kid in the car, you look the fuck after him."  
To his credit, Joe did look apologetic and actually kind of terrified, and helped Pete look for him; Pete found him, while Joe went to look inside the store, happily chatting away to a guy who was refilling his vehicle - a large white van. Pete wished some of little Patrick's confidence would leave him and bestow itself to his larger self, because he really didn't need so much.

"Patrick, there you are!" He called loudly, breathing out in post-paranoid relief when the guy and Patrick said their goodbyes and Patrick came skittering up to Pete, holding his arms up to be picked up like he was a fucking princess and hadn't just terrified Pete three times increasingly in quick succession. Rolling his eyes, Pete obliged, sighing.

"Ricky, I wanna talk to you about something. Do you know what you did wrong?"  
It only hurt a little now that Pete was used to it, to see Patrick's grin drop off his face and his eyes go large.  
"Well first of all, kitten, you shouldn't just run off like that - I'm pretty sure you knew that was bad. But secondly, please don't talk to strangers when I'm not with you, Tricky-pie. Remember _Stranger Danger_?"  
"Oh, yeah." Patrick nodded.

"Okay. You know I trust you with a lot of things, and I'm not that strict, but I need you to be _safe_ , yeah? You should be more sensible than that next time."  
Crestfallen, Patrick nodded and jumped down, spotting Andy and Joe stood outside the store, talking about something.

Before Pete could blink, he was dashing towards them, shrieking, " _Stranger Danger_!" embarrassingly loudly. Pete jogged up to them and, trying not to laugh at the way he strained against it, held Patrick back by the collar.  
Andy looked bemused. "It's okay, kid, we know Joe."  
Patrick puffed, defeated, and stopped causing a racket. "Oh. Okay, then. But Joe _is_ pretty strange."

Pete winced, but Joe looked delighted and offered Patrick a fond hair-scrub before hopping back into the passenger seat, and Andy just laughed, so Pete did too, and once Pete laughed Patrick always joined in. "Get in the van, silly bear."  
"Thought I shouldn't get in nice old men's vans?"  
With an irritated-but-surprised squawking noise under his breath, Pete bundled Patrick into his car seat, Patrick taking the baseball cap off Pete's head and shoving it on his own.  
"I won't be nice if you call me old again," He tried to quell the twitching of his lips and felt offended when Patrick didn't even look a tiny bit afraid.

"Dude, you're such a pushover," Joe sang from the front.

***

They pulled up at the venue, much bigger than most they'd played before. They didn't even have to play until tomorrow, but since they couldn't play any shows tonight anyway, they'd opted to make the drive during the wasted day so they wouldn't have to pull an over nighter to get there, and there was parking for free here.

Patrick had begun to twitch as they pulled up, desperate to get out, and the engine was barely off before Patrick was leaping out, tugging Pete along with him. He wanted to meet the venue tech people, probably. He claimed when he was big that he liked how he could suss them out without them knowing, but Pete was pretty sure he just liked the attention he got for a five year old with his horrifyingly snobby music taste and mindblowingly extensive technical knowledge.

Pete always went with him, shrugging awkwardly and saying something about how much he picked up coming on tour with them, making vague excuses about him being one of their crew's kid and dragging him away when he got too into it and did things like talking about festivals and shows he was clearly not old enough to have attended.

"Aww, but Petey, I wanted to talk to-"  
"Listen, Patrick, you've got to stop telling people about how you saw Blink-182 in 1994."  
"But I did," He protested, "and you told me not to lie!"  
" _Patrick_."  
" _Pete_."  
Pete folded his arms, not flattered by how easily a five year old could sass him. "Don't get mouthy with me, punk," he teased.  
Patrick broke into a smile. "But I have a mouth. Can't help it," he insisted, and Pete got the feeling he could go all day.

Pete, on the other hand, was exhausted. They didn't even have a hotel until tomorrow night, so he wanted to head back to the van and nap, even if it was only early evening. He kind of wanted to go check out the band who were playing tonight, check out what kind of standard they'd be held to, but then Patrick would want to come too, and Pete wasn't doing that again. Failing that, he really fucking wanted a nap.

Patrick must've had other plans, because he followed Pete into the back, climbed awkwardly across Pete's lap and lay there, staring up at him. Pete figured he could manage to sleep sitting up, had done it before, until Patrick started to jiggle impatiently, fishing for attention.

"Petey. _Peteyyyy_. Peterrrrrrrr. Petey-Pete. _Peeeeeete_ ," he moaned incessantly, sounding bored. After half an hour of Patrick managing to time his shrill complaints perfectly as Pete's eyes were about to close, every single time, Pete sat up. "Patrick! Shut _up_. I can't deal with you right now. You've got colouring stuff and your films in your case, go bother Joe or Dirty or literally _anyone_ else, _please_!"

The way Patrick wilted made Pete feel guilty, but it was largely overwhelmed by triumph as Patrick hopped up and obligingly disappeared. Only the band and its most important crew members knew about Patrick - and their manager, which had been a necessity to explain their scheduling needs - but everyone who they dealt with regularly knew that there might be a kid of some description running around.

It was usually harder to sleep without Patrick, but as soon as his irritating presence was removed, Pete fell asleep immediately. He loved Patrick, but he'd been woken up early in the morning and had to be 'on' all day, and added to the long-term tiredness of touring, he felt allowed to be a little bit fucking grumpy.

  
***

  
There was a thud. Pete felt like he'd never gone to sleep, just blinked for a second or something, but he must've done because it was getting dark out now and it was actually snowing, and Andy was there.  
"Hey man. Where's Patrick?"  
Pete struggled up. "I dunno. I was trying to sleep so I sent him to find Joe."

  
"Someone say my name?" Joe's face appeared beside Andy's, patrickless. _Fuck_.  
"Shit. Either of you seen him? Or d'you know where Dirty is?"  
Joe shrugged, but he was probably in the bar, so Pete headed there, with a, "Text me if you see him," to Joe and Andy.

Dirty _was_ in the bar, as was most of the crew, but none of them had seen Patrick. Pete stopped to smash his head against the wood of the bar and disappeared into the growing snowfall to find Patrick.

  
***

Wandering down the backstreets of an unfamiliar city, he tried not to think about the worst that could happen. While he was searching the increasingly snow-lined streets, he came to the decision never to have kids: losing Patrick was bad enough but even if they didn't find him, assuming he survived that long, by tomorrow he'd be big again and manage to contact them or find his was back - what he would do with a small child who didn't have a hope of anything like that, Pete didn't know.

In the meantime, Pete tried not to realise, Patrick could easily freeze to death or be kidnapped or fall somewhere and never be found. "Patrick!"  
The worst part was that this time, it wasn't even like Patrick had stupidly wandered away - he'd probably intentionally disappeared after taking Pete's sleep deprived banishment too seriously. If anything happened, it would totally be Pete's fault.

"Patrick! I'm sorry, baby, I'm _so_ fucking sorry, _please_ come back!"

He phoned Patrick, heart speeding up when it told him that Patrick's phone didn't have cell reception right now, then tried Andy for moral support if nothing else.

"Andy?"  
There were some staticky crackles and Andy saying something Pete couldn't make out.  
"I still can't find him. Fuck, Andy, where is he?"  
Andy's voice sounded hoarse when it came through. "I don't know, Pete. He'll come back, don't worry."  
There were more crackles, and a noise like someone yelling something to Andy and Andy yelling back, and then, "Pete, come back, we-" and he disappeared back into crackling.

Andy probably wanted Pete to come back, before the snow got too bad, but Pete couldn't make himself come back unless he had Patrick with him.

***

It had been an hour, maybe. Pete's cell had totally failed to catch any reception, and he'd stopped for a coffee, feeling guilty for stopping at all but mildly aware of things like hypothermia and passing out from exhaustion as he downed it and stood next to the heater in the shop until his teeth stopped chattering, dashing back out and zipping his hoodie up further.

He didn't know when he started crying, but he was now blubbering quite badly. Patrick's name was barely audible, whimpered from his lips as he wiped his eyes aggressively.

He saw the fucking mood ring on his finger as he pulled his hand away and started all out wailing. He was, he vowed, going to find Patrick, and hold him so tightly even when he squeaked and tried to wiggle away, and he was going to apologise so fucking much and he was never going to even _almost_ swear in front of his tinier self ever again, let alone say anything even mildly unkind; he'd buy him _so_ many fucking pictures of David goddamn Bowie, he'd buy the man _himself_ if he could figure out a way to orchestrate it, and he'd marry Patrick right there, fuck waiting until they had, like, somewhere to live that wasn't a scruffy rental they shared with two other friends, and Patrick was more than barely past being a teenager. 

"Patrick," He sobbed embarrassingly. When a lady, hurrying past, stopped to stare at him, he sagged. "Ricky," he puffed out.

  
" _PETEY!!!_ " There was a yell and a hurricane, and a Patrick. Pete collapsed to his knees in half relief, half weakness. Patrick was wearing a furry, hooded coat and absolutely enormous mittens, bright green Wellington boots peeking out underneath warm-looking trousers, and the little bobble hat Pete had bought him a couple months back, with its matching scarf. He looked wrapped up warmer than Pete, but his cheeks were worryingly blue.

Pete's eyes started to leak, incredibly even worse than before. "Patrick! F- _Patrick_! You're here, I got you - you're not _dead_. Oh my god, Ricky kitten, I thought I'd actually lost you this time. I'm so sorry I'm _sososo_ sorry I'm such a bad kind-of-parent this was totally my fault, I'm sorry baby, I'm sorry I-"

Patrick curled around Pete, eyes also red rimmed and leaking. "Petey," Was all he could manage to sob out, wrapping his mitten clad hands around Pete's waist.  
"Stand up, Petey, gonna get cold. We gotta walk back, but s'not far."  
"What, who's with you? Didn't anyone bring a car?"  
Pete's horror grew at Patrick's blank expression. "Trickster," He gaped, "You didn't come all the way out in this weather by _yourself_?"  
Patrick would've gone pink, if his cheeks weren't all ready wind whipped, so his nonchalant shrug was more convincing, but not by much, because his teeth were chattering and he was on the edge of crying.

He slid his hand into Pete's and pressed up against him, and Pete couldn't believe Patrick had fucking wandered all the way out here for him, all by himself. "...Patrick-" he said brokenly. "You poor baby, you must be so cold!"

He didn't wear his ring when he was small, due to obvious size reasons and not wanting it to slide off his finger and get lost, so Pete had bought him a chain to wear it around his neck, which he proudly did, like right now, where he'd pulled it out from under his coat and was holding onto it like it gave him comfort. He smiled serenely at Pete.  
  
When he started shaking, Pete picked him up. Pete didn't really have the energy, but he'd read (okay, he'd seen it on the Simpsons, but it was _probably_ legit) about moms getting superhuman strength when their kids were in danger, so maybe that totally applied to Pete as he stumbled along with the quivering Patrick. "Petey, you don't even have a coat, you look colderer," Patrick clucked, taking his scarf and wrapping it around Pete's throat, adding his own arms a little further down and burying his face in Pete's collarbone.

He muttered shit Pete totally didn't deserve, like how brave he was and a lot of 'love you' the whole way back. Around the time Pete started to notice familiar buildings and road signs from when they were trying to find their destination the first time around, back when they were safely ensconced in the warm van, he felt his shoulders start to give way.

"I can't carry you any more, buddy. I'm sorry, but it should only be like ten minutes now, can you walk it?"  
Patrick nodded, and burst out laughing.  
" _What_?"  
He pointed to Pete's face.  
"I just carried you like three miles in the snow, so watch it," Pete pointed out.  
"Right, so you know when I got your eyeliner and I made all that mess and you could hardly get it off, and it was all smudgy and _everywhere_?" Patrick made a face. "Yeah, you kind of look like that right now," he giggled. Fuck him for being so cute, because anyone else would get hit.

While they were paused on the sidewalk, a car with tinted windows pulled up next to them. Patrick squeaked and shifted back in alarm. The shadiest looking guy Pete - a fixture of a local hardcore scene - had _ever_ seen popped his head out of the rolled down window and leered at Patrick. "You boys wanna ride?" He sounded drunk.

Pete had a conversation with his brain, which metaphorically went like this: "Hey brain, how's it going? So, uh, what do we think about this dude?"  
And Pete's brain looked drunkenly thoughtful, staggering closer like it had something important to say. It leaned right into Pete's ear and shrieked, loudly enough to make him start, " _WARM_!" then it mumbled something about sleep and fell asleep on Pete's shoulder.

Pete nodded numbly at the driver, going to open the car door, when Patrick screamed and stared at Pete with huge eyes, mouthing something that could've been _Stranger Danger_. He looked sort of horrified, and Pete was craving the warmth but his crippled, drunken brain was muttering in its sleep about Patrick and how he needed Pete to protect him, so he put a hand on Patrick's back, stepping away from the car, and they ran the whole way to the venue without looking to see if the creep was following.

They went to the hallway area near the entrance to the actual venue, because Pete didn't think any fake ID would get Patrick into the bar, and it was warm, and mercifully they managed to get hold of Andy, with almost no crackling.  
"...Pete?"  
"Andy! Yeah it's me," Pete panted, relieved. "I got him. We're in the foyer."  
"That," Andy groaned, "Is what I was trying to _tell_ you. We got him, he came back to the van after like five minutes in the snow, but you went haring the fuck off, and then he escaped and went back out to find _you_! Are you both okay? We're getting a hotel sorted right now, because we're hardly sleeping in the van right now, and I'm assuming you guys will need like a hot shower... or bath, I guess."

"Oh my god, Andy, I _love_ you-" he broke off when Patrick pinched him arm, and looked down confused. Mouth open to defend his lack of swearing, he saw Patrick point to his ring and tap his foot.  
"Like, not as much as Patrick," he amended, feeling a lot warmer all of a sudden as Patrick snuggled happily into his side, making the weird contented sort of purring sounds he occasionally made.

***

Patrick was out, and big again, so he didn't need Pete to go with him and Pete fucking _missed_ him. "I'm such a needy little bitch," he moaned aloud, wondering when he next got to mush his face into his boyfriend's tummy, and then maybe other places after, but he might just stay breathing into Patrick's skin for a while until he recovered from the  
night they'd had yesterday.

It was irrelevant anyway, because Patrick wasn't here. He'd kissed Pete goodbye like an hour ago while Pete was barely awake, leaving to do important Patrick things, and he wasn't back and Pete wanted to cringe at how badly he missed him. He sank onto Patrick's side of their shared hotel bed and switched on the TV, determined not to shove his face in Patrick's pillow to smell his hair, just because he was away for an hour. Pete didn't think Patrick would ever forgive him if he knew.

  
He'd always been on the emo side of clingy, and this was _Patrick_ ; a strange mixture of Pete's guardian angel or something, someone who he needed desperately and couldn't live without, that looked after him; and this small, innocent guy with his slowly growing mutton  
chops and his weird secret and his shyness, who Pete didn't like to let out of his sight - especially not after last night - in case some of that gentle magic got spilled and lost. It made for some interesting levels of emotional torment when Patrick left him alone too long. He sort of felt like a dog left alone while his owner was at work.

Rolling over, he saw a piece of paper on his own side of the bed. He lit up when he realised what it was - a crude child's drawing in bright colours. It was unclear at first, as child's drawings usually are, but the words at the top added some context. It was a picture of the scene from yesterday, with the creepy guy in the car, but Patrick had given him devil horns and some sort of green smoke with flies in it coming out of his mouth - Pete was far taller than he rightfully should be, making Patrick look rodent sized in comparison, and they were being pummelled by blobs of snow three times the size of Patrick's head. Emblazoned across the top was _'STRAJRRR DANGRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!_ ' written so passionately and barely legibly  that Pete had to laugh.

Wiping his eyes, he looked up to see Patrick emblazoned in the doorway, watching him with a smile. Pete's breath caught when he saw the ring, on the wrong finger of the wrong hand to avoid suspicion (Pete wanted the world to know, Patrick wanted no one to know, saying "I don't want our band to just be like, _the gay band_. I know you're all about it anyway, but that's a vulnerable part of me that I don't want strangers to have, I just want _you_ to. And... I'm not all that gay, it's just- it's _mostly_ been just you, so I don't want to have to take questions about it or whatever since it's not..." he trailed off, blushing, and Pete was allowed to tell his family and anyone he could justify as a close friend or someone who needed to know.) and glanced at his own, less impressive - to anyone but Pete -  mood ring, on a different but also wrong finger.

  
"I fucking love you," Pete hissed desperately. "Come here, please, babe. I just- I just fucking, _shit_. I _adore_ you. Look at how beautiful you are. I need to touch you right _now_ , I'm going to _die_ if I don't."  
He was still clutching the paper in one hand, but he set it down carefully when Patrick crossed the room and sat down gracefully on the bed.

He smiled, coyly enough to make Pete afraid. "I dunno if I should. I don't really know you that well, and I need to be aware of," He tilted his head to read his own writing, laughing at it himself as he did, "The Strah-jur dang-ur, right?"

"Babe," Pete whined impatiently, asking for attention. "Fuck, I love you so much I actually _want_ to hear about your day. It hasn't even happened yet, and the entire point of asking about people's days is you can tune them out and get some alone time." He pulled Patrick into his lap, holding tight as he resisted grumpily.  
"Pete," He protested, as Pete hooked his chin over Patrick's shoulder and latched both of his hands around Patrick's front.

"Please let me have _one_ Patrick-cuddle. I nearly got hypothermia for you yesterday, trying to stop you running off and terrifying everyone, little bitch. I've never seen Andy and Joe scared at the same time. They're like, a supernatural pairing, 'cause one freaks out about one thing and the other's, like, chill about it, and then vice versa. So that's a fucking feat, Rick, that you freaked them both out."

Patrick gave in and went slack against Pete's semi-awkward embrace. "I feel like a teddy bear, I can't even hug back, just sit here and get manhandled."  
"You are my fucking teddy bear, silly bear, so give it up. You love it."  
"Do not."  
"'Do not'? I can't believe I'm marrying you."  
"Well you better, 'cause I dunno if you've seen my mom chopping shit in the kitchen but you do not want her as your enemy."

Pete revelled in Patrick's protest as he rolled them around to sit on top of him, leaning down for a kiss he couldn't escape. "I love you I fucking love you, Patrick, you're my-"  
"Pete. Shut up, shut the fuck up. You're literally ruining kissing by trying to talk all the time."  
Pete shut up.


End file.
